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November 7, 2009

Choosing effective domain name

Filed under: company, host, hosting, internet, website — admin @ 5:09 am

Domain name makes an Internet address of your web site that is why it has to be easy to remember and to type, it has to be representative and correspond with your web site. In other words it has to be effective.

To make it to be this way I?ve prepared a couple of tips for you when choosing an effective domain name.

Make Your Domain Name Representative.

In order your domain name to be representative, make it to be accordant to your web site name. And make your site?s name also be your URL. As your web site visitors will remember it by its name. So when they decide to return to your site again don?t make them wonder what the URL to type in their browser to get to the site they need.

There is another problem when the web site?s name and its URL spelled differently. Imagine your web site?s or the company?s name is, for example ?MySuperBusiness? but some other company has such URL. The visitor who remembers your web site by its name would naturally type mysuperwebsite.com in his/her browser and will get to your competitor?s web site. And it would make a loss for you.

There are thousands of domain names are registered every day and that could be a problem for you to get the one you want.

In case you are just starting out it would be more comfortable for you to register a domain name first and name your web site only after you did that. And if you have a promoted brand name and don?t want to change it only because the domain name that fits you is already taken by someone else you can check its owner through the ?Whois? to see who owns it. And you can purchase it from its present owner.

Make Sure Your Domain Name is of Optimal Length.

In general domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. There are a lot of disagreements about of what length the domain name is better to be.

A short domain name advantage is that it?s much easier to remember and it?s less compliant to typing mistakes.

A long domain name is usually easier to human memory instead of the one that was made short by all means. If it was, for example, replaced with its abbreviation it would be much easier to remember the complete meaningful name than the combination of letters and numbers that might have no sense.

So I guess it would be a perfect choice for you to use as short domain name as possible but only on condition of it remains meaningful.

Try not to use any symbols that carry no important information like slashes or hyphens. As it?s very easy to forget them when typing your URL.

Choose the Right Domain Extension.

Choosing a domain name extension depends on what exactly your activity is. In case it is of local scales, like pizza delivery, you can take a country- specific domain name. You also get in a good position with such domain name as the people your activity is targeted to know that they are dealing with a local entity.

The most common types of domain extensions are .com, .net and .org. These domain extensions are for your use in case you are planning to benefit from the international activity.

There are some domain names that require from the registrant to represent a certain type of entity such as .edu, which is reserved for universities or high schools, .aero, .biz, museum and some others.

So as you can see it is vitally important for you to get your own domain name. And it would be better if it corresponds with your activity and the web site?s name. But the bottom line of the article is that you sure should purchase you own domain name.

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November 6, 2009

CGI: What the Heck Is That?

Filed under: hardware, host, hosting, software, webmaster, windows — admin @ 5:10 am

Let’s unlock a little bit of the mystery about something called CGI. If it

helps any, CGI means Common Gateway Interface. This is a method which is

used to exchange data between the server (the hardware and software that

actually allows you to get to your web site) and a web client (your

browser). CGI is actually a set of standards where a program or script (a

series of commands) can send data back to the web server where it can be

processed.

Typically, you use standard HTML tags to get data from a person, then pass

that data to a CGI routine. The CGI routine then performs some action with

the data.

Some of the more common uses of CGI include:

- Guestbooks – The CGI routine is responsible for accepting the data,

ensuring it is valid, sending an email acknowledgement back to the writer,

perhaps sending an email to the webmaster, and creating the guestbook entry

itself.

- Email Forms – A simple CGI forms routine just formats the data into an

email and sends it back to the webmaster. More complicated routines can

maintain a database, send an acknowledgement and validate data.

- Mailing List Maintenance – These routines allow visitors to subscribe and

unsubscribe from a mailing list. In this case, the CGI routine maintains a

database of email addresses, and the better ones send acknowledgements back

to the visitor and webmaster.

A CGI routine can be anything which understands the CGI standard. A popular

CGI language is called PERL, which is simple to understand and use (well,

compared to other languages). PERL is a scripting language, which means each

time a PERL routine is executed the web server must examine the PERL

commands to determine what to do. In contrast, a compiled language such as

C++ or Visual Basic can be directly executed, which is faster and more

efficient.

Okay, in a nutshell (and greatly simplified), here’s how it works:

1) You (the webmaster) specify a form tag which includes the name of the CGI

routine.

2) You create HTML tags which retrieves data from your visitors.

3) Each of the input tags includes a variable name. The data which is

retrieved from the visitor (or directly set if the tag includes the “hidden”

qualifier) is placed in the variable name.

4) When the visitor presses the “submit” button, the CGI routine which was

specified in the form tag is executed. At this time, the CGI routine “takes

control”, meaning the browser essentially is waiting for it to complete.

5) This CGI routine can get data from variable names. It retrieves the data

and does whatever action is required.

6) When the CGI routine finishes, it returns control back to the web client

(the browser).

Some important things to remember about CGI routines:

- You can install CGI routines on your own site if your host allows it -

Addr.Com is an example of a web host which allows for CGI routines. Some web

hosts do not allow you to install your own routines but do provide some

pre-written ones to you. If these are not sufficient for your needs, you can

find a remote hosting service to provide the necessary functions.

- Generally, if you install your own routines they must be installed in the

cgi-bin directory of your site. This is a special location which allows

scripts and programs to be executed.

- CGI routines work best on Apache-style servers. Windows NT and Windows

2000 does support CGI, but it tends to be slow and problematic.

- If you use a remote hosting service, you must remember that although they

appear to be giving you this for free, you are actually paying a price.

Usually they want to display advertisements, although some of them actually

take visitors away from your site.

- When you write a CGI routine, you have the choice of a scripting language

like PERL or a compiled language such as C++ or Visual Basic. Anything which

can execute on the web server is acceptable.

I hope this short introduction to CGI has cleared up some of the mystery.

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